Tell Me Your Truths
by the.eye.does.not.SEE
Summary: "If you're not a murderer, what are you?" Jane comes clean about the events of 1x23 after being arrested.
1. Chapter 1

_**A/N** : Picks up right after the last scene in 1x23, and explores what might happen if Jane decided to come clean immediately._

* * *

She was quiet all through booking and processing. Weller wasn't in the room himself, but he watched through security cameras, and though he listened carefully, she never said a word. She didn't shake, didn't cry, didn't flinch. She was fingerprinted and photographed and relieved of all of her possessions, but she did not once protest or ask what was going on or demand to see the lawyer he had told her she was allowed to have. Most of him accepted her silence as proof of her guilt. But that tiny little part of him—that part he couldn't yet kill, though he was trying valiantly to—reminded himself that it could be proof of something else. Defeat, surrender, hopelessness.

She had been all those things when he'd arrested her earlier. It had been hours ago now, but it still felt like it happened five minutes ago. He was sober and fully awake now—it was the next day—but the memory kept him drunk with fear and confusion whenever he thought about it. That tiny little part of him still couldn't believe he'd done it.

That tiny little part of him was a fucking moron.

"Sir."

Weller blinked, looking up from Mayfair's desk—no, _his_ desk, now—to see Reade in the doorway of his office. For a second, he stared at Reade, wondering whom the agent was addressing. Then he remembered. He waved Reade in, and wondered privately if the title felt as odd for Reade to say as it did for Weller to hear.

"What is it?" he asked once Reade was in front of his desk.

"They just finished processing her." He held out a stack of items contained within plastic evidence bags. "Thought you'd want the first look."

Weller nodded, and took the bags, muttering a quick thanks as Reade departed. He held her erstwhile possessions in his hands, and stared down at them without moving for a long moment. Finally, he dropped them on the desk and rifled through them, careful to keep them sealed. Her case wasn't going to get thrown out on any call of contaminating evidence, of that he would make sure.

There wasn't much: just her dirty and bloodstained clothes, a burner phone, a pair of car keys, and the necklace he'd given her, the one that had been meant for Taylor.

He tried the phone, but it was dead, cracked. The keys were old; they didn't have an electronic fob. The blood on the clothes… He hit a button on his phone, and Patterson answered at once.

"Sir?"

He closed his eyes. God, he was never going to get used to that.

He cleared his throat, forcing himself to focus. "Patterson, I've got Jane's things here with me; Reade brought them. The phone looks pretty wrecked, but if you could give it a try and work some magic—maybe get some calls, get some texts off it—I'd appreciate it."

"Of course, sir."

"And the clothes—"

"I'm already running the blood for matches," Patterson replied, ahead of him as usual. "I took samples from her skin and her clothes while she was being booked. She's—" Patterson broke off for a moment. "Well," she whispered a second later, "You brought her in, so you saw—she's pretty busted up. But nowhere near enough to warrant all the blood she had on her when she came in."

"So you're going to test it, find out whose it is?"

"Like I said, already working on it." And then, as if she couldn't help herself: "I want to find out who attacked her."

"Or who she attacked," Weller replied dryly.

In his mind, he could nearly see Patterson stiffen.

"Sir—Kurt, it's _Jane."_

She said the name with almost scandalized reverence, as if Jane could never attack anyone, and Weller shut his eyes. He knew he couldn't expect anything less from Patterson; she was fiercely loyal and kind to a fault, especially to Jane. But kindness and loyalty wouldn't do her any good anymore, at least not where Jane was concerned.

"It is Jane," he agreed after a moment. Then he sighed. "And look, Patterson, I know she was your friend, but she's a suspect now, a criminal. You can't keep looking at her like she's anything else. You've spent as much time with her as I have; you've trained with her: you know she's more than capable of killing people given half a chance. So let's find out if she did. Like you said, there was too much blood for it all to be hers. I want to know whose it is—make sure you check it against the samples we have of Mayfair first." He paused, thinking. He checked the camera feeds on his computer, but he didn't see her in holding yet. "Where is she right now?"

"She's finishing up with the medic. Just minor cuts, mostly a lot of bruises. Sprained ankle is the worst of it, I think."

He nodded along to that, letting the words wash over him so they wouldn't sink in. He tried not to think about how she'd been limping, earlier, when he'd led her into the NYO in cuffs. _Don't be kind to her,_ he reminded himself. On the other side of the line, he heard Patterson start to speak, only to quiet herself. He squeezed his eyes so he wouldn't sigh aloud.

"Is there something else, Patterson?" he asked finally.

"It's just—they're waiting on you to start the interrogation, and..." She tried to hold herself back, and then finished: "Well, I think they figured—I think they thought you might want to take point with this one. So everyone's waiting."

"I'm not taking point, Patterson." He frowned at the very idea. "And neither are any of you, by the way. The conflict of interest here is as bad as it could be, and—"

"Yes, I realize that," Patterson interrupted quickly. "But—with all due respect, sir—you do make the rules now. If you wanted to talk to her, if you wanted to run the interrogation..."

Patterson let the idea trail off, and Weller did his best not to be consumed by it. For a second, he could see it in his head: he could walk right now to that interrogation room and ferret the truth out of her, ferret _every_ truth out of her… But then he remembered what happened to people that thought like that, and worse, people who acted like that. He remembered what happened to people who thought their power was limitless and untouchable just because they had a certain title and some amount of autonomy and lack of oversight.

They hadn't found Mayfair's body yet, but given the blood loss the team had informed him of, she was more than certainly dead. He would not be following in her footsteps any time soon by abusing his power. He would figure out this mess, and he would do it right.

"I do make the rules," he said to Patterson. "But I follow them, too. So please tell Agents Lomad and Barrow that they'll be taking point on the investigation, and that they can start once she's done with the medic."

* * *

Weller stayed in his office and waited until interrogation began, obsessively watching the feed he had routed to his computer. It didn't take long to start. Barely ten minutes after he hung up with Patterson, Jane was led into the interrogation room, and about twenty minutes after that, Lomad and Barrow stepped in.

He watched her from the video surveillance feed, leaning in close to pick out details. She didn't look up when they walked in; didn't even flinch at the buzzer in the door. They introduced themselves and she said nothing. She had her head bent down low; she seemed catatonic.

After they read her charges, Barrow took the lead:

"Ms. Doe, you've been informed of your right to have a lawyer present for these interviews?"

Slowly, she nodded. She didn't seem to be looking either of them in the eye; they kept tilting their heads to try and catch her attention.

"And I'll assume from your silence that you're waiving that right?" Barrow continued.

She said nothing.

"Ma'am, verbal answers would be very helpful in this instance," Lomad pitched in. "We would appreciate it if you would please cooperate for the record."

There was a long silence.

And then she looked up. Out of nowhere, she started rattling off addresses. She gave directions, landmarks; she listed defining characteristics of certain unnamed streets and the color of cars and the shape of homes and apartment buildings. Her voice sounded hoarse, scratchy. Weller remembered how she'd smelled like smoke when he'd bent close to cuff her the previous night; he wondered if her lungs had been damaged by a slight case of asphyxiation. It sounded like it hurt her to talk, but she kept talking anyway, and behind his computer, Weller stared, speechless.

But luckily Lomad was quicker, smarter—he wrote down all the information as she said it, and when she was finished, he had her check his handwritten list. She nodded that everything he had written down was correct: two locations in the city, two locations upstate, and the make and model of two different cars.

"Is there any reason you've provided us with this information?" Lomad asked afterwards. "Does this pertain to your case in some way?"

She nodded silently. A moment later, she seemed to remember the earlier directive, and answered verbally: "Yes, the information I gave you pertains to my case."

"And what will we find when we send agents to these addresses?"

"Evidence of my crimes," she answered quietly.

Lomad and Barrow glanced at each other, and then one leaned forward, the other back. They took turns, pressing her with more questions, cajoling her with more leniency, and bartering with more threats, but she gave no further details. Every time they asked, she gave the same answer. They went on like this for an hour and a half, and then finally they gave up and got to their feet. Weller watched Lomad and Barrow leave on-screen, and then he watched Jane be led out. Two minutes later, there was a knock on his door.

The agents came and told him what he already knew:

"She says she'll only discuss the details with you, sir."

* * *

He put off seeing her for as long as he could. He sent teams to the addresses she'd mentioned, and what they found there was more than enough to hold her under suspicion of murder, theft, obstruction of justice, and a handful of other charges. He did not go to the locations himself, but instead received reports, and examined the evidence by hand when it came in. While he waited for conclusive tests on the blood and the DNA found at the first scene, and for matches on the dental records of the corpse they'd found at the second scene, he handled his other duties. He made appearances before the press; he called for more resources going towards uncovering the truth of his predecessor's disappearance; and come Monday, he signed the contracts and was sworn in as the new assistant director of the FBI's New York branch.

His first act as director was to hide in his office.

He kept the shades closed and he made people knock and wait for permission to enter, and he spent every minute he had trying to think through this. He pushed aside his other duties, and relegated tasks that should not be relegated, all in the service of piecing this mystery together himself—without her.

If he could do it himself, then he wouldn't have to see her. He wouldn't have to look her in the eye. He wouldn't have to be in her presence until he was called into court to testify against her.

But it was impossible. Even with the evidence from all the crime scenes, and the matches on the dental records and the blood and everything else, he still had no answers. He had a pile of cleaned-up blood that was Mayfair's, but no body to go with it; and the body he _did_ have was listed in three different databases as having been already deceased for the last five years. Twice, he brought in out-of-state coroners to check. Every one testified that the body in the morgue was merely days old. And yet every database that referenced the body's dental records swore up and down that, according to their knowledge, the man had been dead for the last half-decade.

A week passed, and though Weller tried his best to do it all himself, he quickly came to the conclusion that there was no way that was happening. If he wanted answers, he'd have to talk to her. If he wanted to move forward with this case, and get it out of his life—get her out of his life—he'd have to go and talk to her.

* * *

He decided on a Tuesday. She had been given notice the previous week that she'd be moving to a proper prison facility today, and he knew from experience that it was always a good idea to disrupt a captive's sense of routine. It put them on edge, made them anxious and easier to trip up. Then again, what held for most did not usually hold for her, so he wasn't expecting much.

She seemed calm when he walked into interrogation. Not passive like she had been the other day, simply quietly aware. Her hands were chained to the table, and beneath her tattoos, the skin of her bare arms looked paler than usual. Thinner, too. Or maybe her holding cell jumpsuit was just a few sizes too big. He was, after all, used to seeing her in form-fitting clothing.

She looked up when the door opened.

"Wow, you actually came. I was starting to give up hope." She smiled a little, like maybe this was some sort of joke between them. Like maybe they were still friends.

He didn't smile back. He stayed at the far end of the room and brandished her file in his hand. It had gotten rather thick this past week, ever since she'd given Lomad and Barrow those addresses.

"Would you like to hear your charges?" he asked.

She shook her head, her eyes falling to the table. She picked at one of her fingernails with the other. Her cuffs rattled lightly against the metal of the table. "Not really."

"Well, unfortunately for you, I have a legal obligation to recite them to you. So you'll have to listen one more time."

"The other agents already did that."

"Yes, but they're not me."

She looked up at that, and watched him as he came towards the table. He dropped the file, hard, and the sharp sound echoed through the room. She flinched, though he noticed she tried to hide it. He pulled out the chair opposite her and sat down.

"Look at me," he said. "And listen to me. You're not talking to a friend here, all right? You're not talking to a coworker and you're not talking to someone who will do anything he can to protect you. You're talking to the assistant director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and my job is not about sticking my neck out for you anymore."

"Congratulations, by the way." She smiled a little and pointed to his chest, where a little American flag was fastened to his lapel. "I like the pin. The suit, too. You look very official."

"I am very official." He watched her a moment, and then added: "You should know that I don't want to be here. That I'm only here because you requested me, and said you'd give details of your crimes if I came forward to speak to you. This is nothing more than that."

"Duly noted, Assistant Director Weller."

He closed his eyes. The title sounded even stranger coming from her mouth than it did everyone else who addressed him on a daily basis.

"Okay." He drew in a breath. "Let's start, then." He opened the file in front of him, keeping it equidistant between them both so each could get a good look. He had arranged it carefully, for show: there was a picture of the spill of Mayfair's luminol-illuminated blood; a picture of the corpse from the wreckage of that barn fire; a picture of the serial killer-esque wall of tattoo drawings in Jane's home; and a picture of Jane herself, taken the first day they'd found her. Behind it all were pages and pages of the call log that Patterson had miraculously managed to salvage from the wrecked phone.

The pictures had their desired effect: the chains around her wrists rattled when she began to shake, and her lips went white when she pressed them together. He kept his eyes on her and quietly, carefully, let the kinder parts of him sink back into nothingness. It didn't matter if she was scared; it didn't matter if she was alone. She had killed people and lied to people and she had attempted to undermine the very office he now controlled. He would call her a traitor, if he could in any way be certain that she had even ever been a patriot.

Once he knew for certain that she was guilty, he'd pass her case off to the prosecution, and wash his hands of all this. _Just get through this interrogation,_ he coached himself.

"So," he said, breaking the silence. "What do you want to talk about first?"

She said nothing, simply stared at the photographs. Her eyes couldn't focus; they kept jumping from one image to the next.

"No preference, huh? All right, let's run through the options, then." He pushed the pictures aside, and tapped a finger against the paper behind them. "Want to talk about these calls and texts on a hidden phone? No?" He reached into another page of the file, and held up a picture of the charred remains of that old barn. "Maybe you want to talk about the property you destroyed?" He pulled out another picture. "The cars you stole? The weapons and the enormous about of sodium hydroxide in the back?" Still, she said nothing. "Hm..." He pretended to think. "Something else, then. What's left? ...Oh, right. The people you killed. Want to talk about them?"

He brought forward the two pictures: one, the remnants of Mayfair's blood; the other, the remnants of the charred skeleton found beneath the wreckage of that barn.

"They're very interesting murders, aren't they? One's still missing a body, and the other's missing a motive. Want to explain this for me? I'd love to hear your side of things."

She did not speak.

He sighed. "Come on, Jane. You asked for me to be here. Start telling the truth, or I'll get tired of wasting my time. I have a hell of a lot better things to do than sit here and watch you breathe, understand?"

When she didn't respond, he rapped his knuckles hard against the table. She jumped, her eyes first flying to him, and then back at the pictures. He watched them zero in and focus, and he knew he had her.

"Tell me what happened," he ordered quietly. "Tell me why you killed them." He kept his voice soft, empathetic. "Mayfair—she's obvious, right? I mean, I get why you killed her. She found out about your secret calls and your secret agenda, didn't she? Your actions make sense: you've gotta protect your con, and she was a threat to it. I get that, I do. But this other one—what'd he do, huh? How'd he get in the way? How'd he become such a problem that you thought you had no choice but to let him die in a fire?"

Jane shook her head, but he could see her crumbling already. There were tears rising in her eyes.

He beat back the kind part of himself threatening to return. He reminded himself now, as he had reminded her before, that they were not friends. He was here for the truth, and it didn't matter how he got it.

"Come on, Jane. Talk to me. What was the point of all this? What did you expect to gain from these murders? Did you really think—" He shoved the pictures of the luminol-highlighted blood and the charred skeleton towards her, and he watched her shrink away until her cuffs jerked her back into place. "Did you really think it wasn't going to end like this, Jane? Did you really think you could lie to people this long, trick people this long, and not end up with blood on your hands and shackles on your wrists? Did you think you could actually go up against the FBI and _win_?"

She stared at the pictures. He watched one, then another, tear slip out and fall down her face. He refused to speak, and instead crossed his arms and waited her out. She reached a trembling hand forward to brush against the glossy surface of the photographs.

"I didn't mean to kill anyone," she whispered finally.

"Yes, that is usually the line that people in your position use."

Her eyes flashed. "It isn't a line!"

He shrugged. "Fine. If it's not a line, then explain yourself. Tell me how you killed them, and why."

"I didn't kill _them_ , I just—" She sucked in a breath. "I only killed him. Okay? He killed Mayfair, and I—I killed him."

"So you're openly admitting to murder?"

"Yes." She looked down. "I told you," she whispered, "I'm done lying."

"Ah, and you're openly admitting that you've been lying too, good. We're getting somewhere." He sat back. "So tell me about the lies. Tell me about these bodies." He tipped his chin towards the one of the charred corpse. "You claimed you only killed that one. Tell me about him. How'd you do it? What happened?"

She shook her head. "You found the body, you know how I did it," she whispered. "I—I killed him, and then—Oh, God, I just left him there, I abandoned him, I..."

She trailed off, shaking, and he waited. He waited for her to start screaming, or crying, or fighting. He waited for her to break down. He could use that; he thought. He could find a way to pull the truth out of her once she'd fallen apart. But nothing happened. A few more tears fell, and she wiped at her face. She sucked in a wet, hoarse breath. And then, finally, she raised her chin and looked up.

"I want to talk about something else first," she whispered.

"You do, do you?"

"Yes," she answered at once. "I'll—I'll talk about anything. Mayfair or the phone or the cars—"

"No, I don't think so," Weller cut in, and he sat forward in his seat as her face fell. If she weren't already so pale, he'd say he could see the blood drain from her. But she looked bloodless already, like a ghost. He decided, as he looked at her, that she had gotten thinner. Guilt did that to people. "This is your most serious crime to date," he continued. "So I would like to discuss it in its entirety."

"Please," she whispered, reaching forward. "Please, Kurt, I'd really rather if we—"

When she reached out to touch his hand, he jerked away, so fast that she visibly flinched. It took him a few seconds to recover himself.

"I'll request that you please do not touch your interrogating officer," he snapped. "And in case you've forgotten the rules of federal interrogations, you, as a suspect, do not get to call the shots. We'll discuss what I want to discuss, and that starts with this corpse here."

He pushed a photo of the remains to her side of the table.

She stared down at it, not speaking.

"Do you want me to beg you?" she whispered finally, lifting her eyes to him. "Is that what you want? _Please_ —don't make me talk about this right now."

"I want you to give me the truth." Amid her protests, he turned her file to a new page, one that contained all the information forensics had been able to gather on the dead man, as well as the fire department's report, and the various coroner's reports. "So," he began, raising his voice over hers, "tell me what I need to hear. Give me the truth about this body we found, because trust me, the facts sure as hell aren't lining up. I've got a record of him here that makes just about as much sense as yours does, which is _none_. And I figure if you two have that in common, you've got a hell of a lot more in common, too. So tell me, Jane. Tell me why you murdered him in cold blood."

She looked sharply away at the request.

"Oh, I'm sorry." He frowned. "Does that language make you uncomfortable? Is it a little too real? Let me rephrase: I would like to know why you thought it necessary to not only willfully and forcefully drive a scythe through this man's gut, but that you somehow also thought it appropriate to let his body burn to a crisp."

"Kurt, I didn't—"

"What were you trying to do, Jane, cover your tracks? Did you really think the fire would melt his bones? Did you think it would destroy his dental records? Did you think we wouldn't find out?"

"I—"

"Obviously not, or why else would you have all that sodium hydroxide in the truck outside? You were planning on obliterating him from existence, like I'm sure you already did with Mayfair, but what happened? What stopped you? Don't tell me you had a change of heart, now." He tilted his head. "Or maybe you got scared of the fire? I'd say you grew out of your pyromaniac phase, but then again—you never really had one, did you, Jane Doe?"

She swallowed hard, and in the silence that followed his line of questioning, all that could be heard in the room was the sound of her cuffs shaking against the table. When she drew in a breath, it was ragged and awful, and it set off more than a few tears, but it did not quell her harsh voice.

"Why are you being such an asshole?" she demanded in a whisper.

" _Excuse_ me?" he snapped, rising to his feet. "What the hell did you just say to me?"

Her eyes, more furious than teary now, met his obstinately as she lifted her head to look up at him. "I _said_ , why are you being an asshole? I know you're not stupid. Clearly you've been able to deduce that he meant something to me, and that I'm upset about what I did to him, even if it was necessary. Why are you treating him—treating _me_ —like this? Since when are you this cold, this—this heartless?"

"You murdered a man, Jane. I think some hostility on my part is allowed. Especially when you refer to the act as 'necessary.'"

"You don't even know the circumstances!"

"No," Weller agreed, suddenly calm. "I don't." He sat back into his chair and yanked it forward. "Why don't you enlighten me on that front? Tell me the circumstances; tell me why I should treat you as anything less than what you appear to be, sitting in front of me in chains, after directing my men to a body you claimed as one of your crimes. If you're not a murderer, what are you?"

 _Who are you_?

The second question echoed between them, just like everything else they hadn't spoken of since the arrest.

"Well, fine," he said, breaking the stalemate. He had not interest in talking about Taylor, no interest in talking about anything except the details of her case. And even that—he just wanted it over and done with. "If you don't want to talk about the circumstances of his death, then I'm just going to assume you went there with the intention to kill him and liquidate his remains, as I'm sure you did with Mayfair. That would be two counts of first-degree murder, on top of all the other charges you admitted to: obstruction of justice, theft, possession of unregistered firearms, destruction of property… I can go on, but that would take weeks. Instead, I can be brief: Would you like to discuss just how bleak your future looks at this point? You do know what two counts of first-degree murder adds up to in jail time, right?"

She muttered something he couldn't hear. When he told her to speak up, she glared at him.

"I said, I did it in self-defense."

"Did what in self-defense?"

"I killed him in self-defense. And I never killed Mayfair," she added forcefully. "So there's no second count."

"You're telling me he attacked you?"

"He…" For a second, she hesitated, chewing on the inside of her lip, and Weller watched her get her story straight. Not for the first time, he wished he could see inside her head. He wished he could read her thoughts as easily as this report; he wished he could see into her mind and understand who she was and where she had come from. Why she was here. Why she had done these things. Why she seemed to be a plague sent to personally destroy him, his career, and his family.

"I don't know what was wrong with him," she whispered. "It... It was like he was out of his mind. He'd never acted like that before, never talked like that before. I don't know if he was on drugs or scared senseless or what but..." She closed her eyes. "He tried to erase my memory," she whispered. "And when I tried to stop him, we got into a fight and—and—"

"Erase your memory?" Weller actually laughed. "He tried to _erase your memory_? Are you serious? You think I'm that dumb, Jane?"

She stared, speechless. Her eyes traveled over the mirth on his face and she felt a sinking feeling in her gut. She didn't know why she ever expected he'd believe her.

"You expect me to buy that? You're running the same gag twice—you do realize that, right?—and you think I'll swallow it a second time? I mean, Christ, Jane, I know you outsmarted us for months, but we're not blind anymore. We're not going to accept every goddamn word you say like it's gospel. You don't get to peddle your trauma for a get-out-of-jail-free card."

"I'm not lying! And I'm not peddling anything! Why is that so hard to believe?" she demanded when he shook his head. "It's true! I'm telling you the truth!"

"You're now a confessed murderer, Jane. Forgive me if I don't believe every word that comes out of your mouth any longer."

"It happened once already, remember: you tested me and polygraphed me, and it wasn't fake—"

"—yes, and this second time, all the evidence just conveniently goes up in smoke, doesn't it? All the proof burned up in the blaze _you_ started, didn't it?"

"I didn't start the fire," she bit out.

He smiled without warmth. "Ah, so let me guess: the dead man did. Right? He seems to be at fault for everything where you're concerned. He killed Mayfair, he attacked you, he burned down that barn… Next you're going to tell me he ran himself through with that scythe, right? I wonder what he'd say if he were here. Would he blame you the same way you're blaming him?"

She shook her head. "No," she answered quietly, deflating. "He wouldn't blame me. He was always very aware of the consequences of his actions."

Weller gave her a minute in silence to deal with what had to be dealt with. He watched her calmly as her eyes stared of into space, and her mind got lost in memories. He packed away the photos and the records and he set the file on her to the side.

"Maybe you should follow his example, then," Weller said quietly, breaking through her thoughts. "Time to tell me what happened, Jane, and face your own consequences."

He shook his head, blowing out a breath as he massaged the back of his neck. He didn't know how, but they'd arrived back at the start: a ridiculously implausible story, no witnesses, and the two of them sitting here across from each other trying to make sense of it.

"If this memory wipe story is true, _again_ , then tell it to me, Jane. Explain it. Why'd he want to wipe your memory? Was he the one that did it in the first place? Why? What was the point?"

She shook her head. "No. No, that was…" She rolled her lips together, silencing herself. "Look," she said, raising her head to meet his eyes. "It's a really, really long story, okay? And a lot of it I'm sure you won't believe, because it'll be my word against your skepticism. But…" She sighed. "I'll tell it if you want to hear it." She met his eyes. "I swear I'll tell the truth, and I won't spare any details. But like you said, assistant director, you have more important things to do than sit here with me. So... Are you sure you have time for it?"

He didn't, but that didn't matter. He could see the look in her eyes, the pleading in them again. It was the same look she'd given him the other night when he'd arrested her. It was the same looked she'd given him every day for weeks after they met, when her new life had been spiraling out of control. It was the same look she'd give him every time she was backed into a corner, and powerless to get out. She needed understanding, she needed a friend, and even though he'd sworn he couldn't be the latter…

He sighed, and then reached up to loosen his tie, and undo the top button of his dress shirt to get some air. If he was going to be here for a while, he might as well get comfortable. "Go on, then," he instructed. "Start at the beginning."

* * *

 _ **A/N** : So I'm still rather annoyed at how poorly the finale was cobbled together, but it was kind of fun trying to unravel it all in a (somewhat) logical manner in this. It's nice being back in angst-land with these two, and it was surprisingly cool to write Weller in charge, and trying to get some professional distance from Jane for once._

 _It's been a while, though, so I'm sure I'm a bit rusty. But if you have thoughts, please feel free to let me know. Thanks for reading. :)_


	2. Chapter 2

_**A/N** : Back by popular demand! I'm not sure how far I'm going to with this fic, but I'm very happy people liked the first chapter, and I hope you like this one as well. :) Thank you so far to everyone who has taken the time to review!_

 _Just a note: As the show left us with nothing definitive in the finale on any front, I'll be taking some creative licenses here, as I did in the first chapter, to sort it all out for my own purposes. The point of this story isn't to bend to the show, but to try and find a believable way to explain all that they left hanging. And if it ends up departing from the show—well, that's what fanfic's for! Enjoy! :)_

* * *

"Okay, so… Let me try and get this straight."

Weller rubbed his face roughly with his hands, digging the palms in deeply into the hollows of his eyes. Jane had been talking nonstop for over eight hours, and in all that time, neither of them had left the room or even changed the subject. For hours and hours, she talked, illuminating all the secret meetings and agendas and relationships and betrayals of the last few months, and he listened. As he listened, he felt his head grow progressively heavier; these last few hours, it had started to pound. He knew he should get some water, some Advil. He should eat something. They'd been here nearly the entire day. But he had to understand first. He couldn't leave here without understanding.

He began with what seemed like the most straightforward point.

"All right, so you say you saw this Oscar kill Mayfair… Why?"

"He was trying to protect me," Jane replied. "She had a gun on me; she was going to bring me in—or maybe even kill me right there, I don't know. She was furious. He shot her from behind, she bled out…" Jane closed her eyes, sucking in a harsh breath and summoning calm. Ever since they'd arrested her, she'd been dreaming on and off about Mayfair's death, and that night in the barn. Sometimes she watched Mayfair and Oscar burn together in a fire she'd created; other times, they turned on her and killed her together. She didn't know which dream was worse; all she knew was that there was not one morning she didn't wake up in her cell sweating. "I tried my best to stop the bleeding, Kurt. I swear I did. But the bullet must've nicked something; she hardly stayed a minute with me…"

Weller didn't pause for sentiment. "And he helped you get rid of the body afterwards? Oscar?"

Jane opened her eyes. Weller watched a curious expression come over face: deep confusion, as if she were just waking from sleep, and didn't know where she was.

"I… I don't know," she said slowly, a frown forming on her face. "I yelled at him to go after he shot her, and he did, he ran, but… When I left to get something to clean up all the blood and came back, the body was gone. The blood was still there, though, so I cleaned it up as best I could…"

She trailed off when she noticed Kurt was writing on the pad of paper in his hands again. He'd been doing so intermittently throughout their now hours-long interrogation. It reminded her of the way Borden wrote in his notebook during their sessions. She had always wanted to know what her physiatrist wrote about her, what he found interesting enough to get down on paper. Well—he wasn't here to ask, and likely never would be again. But Kurt was.

"What is that?" she asked abruptly, curiosity getting the better of her. "What are you writing?"

"I'm keeping track, is all." He lifted his pad and showed her a bulleted list that covered almost half the page. The last entry read _Accessory to murder and Obstruction of justice_. At the top, her name, the date, and her case file number were written in his quick, small handwriting.

She knew she shouldn't expect anything different—he was her arresting officer, after all—but still, the sight of that list made her stomach sink. It made her want to stop talking.

But of course he wouldn't allow that.

"So what happened after that? The body disappeared, you wiped up the blood, and…?"

"And I tried to call him," she replied, forcing herself back into the story. She knew the more she got out, the better this would go—or at least, she hoped. "I tried about a hundred times to reach him, but he refused to pick up. So I did what I had to do; I hunted him down." At the blank stare on Weller's face, she added defensively, "He'd just shot and killed Mayfair after framing her for murder; what would you have done? I had to bring him in!"

Weller didn't reply. He glanced back down at his list, made a mark next to something. Jane didn't ask what it was this time. She didn't want to know.

"So you never once thought to come forward with this? To talk to me or Zapata or Reade or Patterson? You just thought you'd lone wolf it out there?"

Jane looked down. She knew she'd made the wrong decision, going after Oscar alone. And she knew she had no right to ask Kurt not to rub it in.

"He was my mess," she answered quietly. "I figured it was my responsibility to clean him up."

"Mm, yes, you certainly did that, didn't you?"

Jane kept her eyes on the table, but she still saw the photograph. Weller shoved the picture of Oscar's charred remains right under her eyes.

"Why'd you let him burn, Jane?" he asked quietly.

She shook her head. "The fire was an accident," she whispered, her throat starting to close. She could feel the smoke in her lungs again. It was stinging her eyes. "I don't even remember how it started. One of us knocked something over. A candle, a flame, I don't know. There was so much hay in the barn, or straw, and all the wood…"

"And the barn went up like a barn would," Weller surmised easily. He looked back at his notes. "And then… You went home right after?"

Jane shook her head. "I stopped… I stopped to ditch the weapons, ditch the car. Before I left…" She gestured to the file. "Well, you saw the pictures from the scene. I graffitied that car."

"Yeah, I saw that." Weller rubbed his chin. He'd been here so long with her, he swore his beard felt thicker. "'For Marcos.' What's that supposed to be about?"

"Marcos—apparently he's the man that got shot in my apartment. The one that broke in, the one that knocked my tooth out, remember? With the beard and everything. And you remember the guy that locked you and the team up on the boat—Cade? Well, apparently they were close. Oscar killed Marcos because he was stepping out of line—"

"—and Cade tried to kill you in retribution, to get back at him," Weller finished for her. He paused, still staring at the picture of the car. "So why the graffiti?" He looked up at her. "You suddenly got some strong tie to that dead bearded man? Getting more memories? He an ex-boyfriend, too?"

Jane shook her head. "No. No, I hardly even remember him. The graffiti was more of a diversion—or, insurance, I guess you could say. That's probably more accurate." At the look on Weller's face, she explained, "If someone from their group came and found Oscar's remains, or heard about his death, I didn't want them to think it was me, or you guys. If I left the message…"

"They'd see the graffiti, assume Cade killed Oscar out of nothing more than revenge. And then they'd go and take care of Cade for you, never suspecting the true culprit." Weller nodded along. "Smart, quick thinking."

"Thanks," Jane replied, a habitual smile flickering across her face at the praise.

When he looked up at her, his gaze cool, and she glanced away, remembering too late that his momentary respect for her intellect meant nothing in the larger scheme of things. She sat and waited, staring at the cuffs on her hands, until he spoke again.

"So this man you murdered, Oscar… You're sticking with your 'He tried to wipe my memory' story?"

"I'm sticking with the truth," Jane replied pointedly, looking up. "And that is the truth." She tipped her chin at the pictures of the charred barn. "I'm sure you've had your forensics teams comb over that crime scene five different times by now. I know the fire couldn't have been hot enough that it burned those needles. There has to be some proof left—"

"Regardless of what little proof we found that might corroborate your story," Weller interrupted, "all the conclusive evidence is gone. The glass vials were shattered when the roof of the barn fell, and whatever drugs were or weren't in them—"

"They were there! I saw them labeled, they said ZIP on the side—"

"Oh, good, well, I'm glad that's cleared up," Weller replied sarcastically. "We'll just take your word for it, case closed."

Jane shut her eyes, sucking in a breath and forcing calm. "Kurt, look. I know you don't trust me anymore. I understand that. I respect that. You have no reason to trust me after all the times I lied to you—"

"Yes, you are correct."

"But just try to listen!" she begged. She slammed her palms down on the table so hard her shackles shook from wrist to ankle, making both of them jump. "Just listen to me, please," she repeated quietly. "I've been telling you the truth all day. I've been telling you the truth since you arrested me. Why won't you try to believe me? Do you not see—" She broke off for a second, and then forced herself to continue. "Kurt, do you not see how hard this is for me, to talk about these things? You think I want to relive watching Mayfair die in front of me? You think I want to talk about, in detail, how I murdered the _only_ person that knew me better than anyone? You think I want to sit here across from you and have you look at me like I'm nothing better than all the assholes we've put away these last few months?" She shook her head, tears pricking. "No, Kurt. I don't want to do any of that. But if it means you'll believe me—" She paused when he met her eyes. "I'll talk for as long as you want," she promised. "Anything you want to know, you'll know. I'll tell you whatever you ask for."

Kurt said nothing for a few minutes after she spoke. For a while, he just stared at her and, she thought, waited for her to break again. She wasn't far off—this day in interrogation had been exhausting, and she felt like she was continuously on the edge of screaming or crying or simply passing out from emotional fatigue.

But none of that was an option—not if she wanted him to take her seriously. So she sat, and she met his eye, and she waited. She did her best to quiet her mind, while still keeping all the relevant information close enough to access. She couldn't shut down completely. She knew if she messed up now, it'd be over. He'd be gone, and he'd never come back. She'd be at the mercy of the prosecution, and with all the evidence they had, they'd bury her. She'd never set foot outside a prison complex.

But then again, she deserved to be buried. She deserved to live out the rest of her days in prison. For everything she'd done in this life, and perhaps in her previous life, she deserved to suffer. With an ache she felt deep in her chest, she realized that maybe Kurt never believing her was meant to be part of that suffering. It certainly hurt more than anything else that had happened so far.

She had fallen so far into her own fears that she had almost forgotten her offer to tell him whatever he wanted to know when he finally spoke. He had his head down at that point, and was staring at something in her case file. He spoke so quietly that she almost didn't hear him at first. But then the softly spoken words entered her brain, and she heard them loud and clear, as if he'd shouted them.

"Did you love him?"

Jane stared at him. She had offered to tell him _any_ truth, and this is the one he'd asked for? He, the assistant director of the New York office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, did not want to know about any other people she'd killed, or any other acts of treason she'd committed, or what national secrets she might've sold to the enemy. No, instead, he wanted to know if she'd loved another man. She swallowed hard, licking her lips nervously. She could suddenly feel her heart pounding much faster in her chest than it had been a moment ago.

"I… only knew him for a couple of months," she replied when she could.

He shrugged. "A lot can happen in a couple months." He tipped his chin at her file. "As evidenced here."

Jane nodded along. She watched him flip through a couple pages of her case file, as if she'd given him a definitive answer and they'd moved on. But still, she could feel the question hanging in the air. And she knew he deserved an answer to this. She had told him everything else about Oscar, after all. She'd told him about their secret meetings; she told them that they'd taken a romantic, intimate turn...

"No," she said finally. "I didn't love him. I'm sure I did before—I _know_ I did before—but now…" She shook her head. "We only had a few months together, and even then, it was just a few nights here and there. We hardly had time to… fall in love all over again."

"So it was just sex then?"

The detachment in his voice made her freeze for a second. Her eyes went to his, but he was still pretending to go over her case file and he did not lift his gaze to meet hers.

"No," she answered, after the shock had passed. "No, it wasn't just sex. I liked the time I spent with him, even when we weren't… together like that. I cared about seeing him; I worried about him when he wasn't around. Whatever it was between us…" She blew out a breath, looking to the ceiling. "I don't know," she said finally. "I don't know what it was, but it wasn't just sex, and it wasn't love, at least not for me, I… God, I don't know what to call it! I don't know how to judge these things, Kurt," she whispered, reaching up a hand to rub the side of her head.

She looked at him sitting across from her, simply waiting for an explanation, and she found herself wishing so fiercely and so suddenly that he was her friend again, and that she was not in chains being interrogated. If things had been different, if Oscar had come to her normally, and not in the dark of the night while Carter tortured her, not with these strange ties to some anti-government group… She knew Kurt would've been the first person she would've gone to about him. She would've sought his advice, would've asked what he thought, would've wanted his opinion on how she should act, what she should do.

"Do you know why you guys never got married?"

Jane shook her head. "I assume it was because of the mission, but…" She sighed. "I don't know for sure. We didn't talk about the past that much—at least, not that part of the past. I wanted to know, but…" She looked down. "It felt cruel to ask," she whispered. "After how I left him, I didn't want to make him relive it just to satisfy my curiosity."

"What did you discuss from the past, then?"

"Nothing important," Jane replied. Her voice fell as she realized, "We hardly talked about anything. For the first couple weeks, it was just about the mission; he fed me bits of information I wanted to know to keep me coming back."

"And he gave you tasks."

Jane nodded. "Yes."

"Tasks that framed Mayfair for murder, that infiltrated the FBI."

Jane nodded again. She met his eyes. "I won't say I'm proud of what I did, because I'm not, Kurt. I hate what I did to Mayfair. I hate that I did it willingly; I hate that I did it blindly. But it doesn't change the fact that I did it, of my own free will. And if you put me back in time…" She swallowed. "I'd do it again, Kurt," she whispered. "I'd do anything to find out who I was before, to know if I really—really was Taylor or not. I'm not saying this so you'll understand or forgive me—I don't forgive myself—but I told you I'd be honest, and I'm being honest. I had to know who I was, who I am. Meeting up with him and doing what felt like harmless little jobs seemed worth it at the time."

He said nothing as she spoke, and his grave face betrayed no hint of emotion. She eyed him for a careful moment, weighing options, before finally deciding to say it.

"That's why I didn't come to the park that night, you know," she explained quietly, watching Kurt's eyes widen, and flash to hers. She kept her gaze on him so she wouldn't be tempted to look at the security cameras in the room, or the enormous mirror on the far wall that she knew shielded who knew how many eavesdroppers. She had already spent the last few hours talking about her newly discovered sex life with Oscar, and yet somehow talking about that failed rendezvous with Kurt in the park was somehow more intimate. It was in the past, yes, but unlike whatever future she might've had with Oscar, this one with Kurt wasn't yet dead. Or at least, it didn't feel that way to her when she looked at him.

"He asked me to come and meet him that night; he told me he'd tell me if I was Taylor or not… And I went. I needed to know, so I… I put myself, and my own truth, first." Her eyes fell to the table. "I know I can't ask you to understand that. I know, in light of everything else I've done—"

"No, I understand," he interrupted quietly.

"I thought you and I would figure things out later," she whispered. "Not meeting you at the park didn't feel like the end of the world. It didn't feel like the end of anything. I thought I'd just explain myself the next day, and we'd clear the air, but then before I could say anything, you told me you hadn't even gone there to meet me in the first place…"

"Well, I—"

She looked up when he started to speak, but the moment their eyes met, his mouth fell closed. He shook his head once, quick, as if clearly away a fly.

"I should go," he said suddenly, pushing his chair back. "I've been here long enough."

She nodded absentmindedly, watching him gather his things. He seemed to be shoving the photos haphazardly back in the file, and she watched him, wondering why he was rushing all of the sudden. Wondering what it was he'd stopped himself from saying before.

He was at the door before she realized she couldn't let him go just yet. If he didn't want to talk to her about them anymore, fine. But she still had one question, one that only he could answer. He stopped when she called his name, but didn't turn. She leaned forward over the table, wishing she weren't chained to it, wishing she could get up and go to him.

"Before you go, I just want to know… What will happen now, to his body?"

She had been wondering this ever since they'd booked her; she'd been wondering it ever since she'd driven away from that barn fire. No matter if he'd tried to erase her memory, or even tried to kill her, she didn't want to leave Oscar like that. He didn't deserve to be just a pile of bones and ash. She might not love him now, but she could remember loving him before, and it kept a thread of loyalty there. She didn't want to see him left discarded like he meant nothing.

Weller turned and appraised her for a long moment, as if figuring out how much she wanted the information. She couldn't help herself; she knew the need to know was plain on her face. Thankfully, he took mercy on her.

"Once his corpse is no longer a piece of evidence in this investigation, it will be sent back home."

She blinked. "Home?" Oscar had never mentioned having a home. She thought of his little apartment downtown. She hoped that wasn't where the body was being sent. It would only rot further there.

"Yes." Weller frowned a little at the blank surprise on her face. He explained, "He's got a father still alive, living in Illinois."

"A father?" She straightened. "He never mentioned…"

"I imagine he wouldn't, given that he's been legally dead to said father, and anyone else he used to know, for the last five years."

Jane stared, not knowing what to make of that. She remembered, as if from years ago, him telling her that Orion was where she'd died. She wondered where he'd died.

Weller sighed, reaching up a hand to rub his eyes. For a second his voice fell, his shoulders slumped, and he was Kurt again. She wanted to hug him. "That's a house call I really don't look forward to making," he murmured tiredly. "I don't have any idea how I'm going to explain any of this to a civilian."

"Well—maybe you don't have to explain it," Jane hurried to say. "You could just—" She tried to rise, only to be held in place by the shackles. She sat back down, but leaned eagerly across the table. "You could just tell him it—it was an accident." The easy solution made her heart pound with hope. She could stop the pain, here and now. She could stop her mistakes from ruining more lives. She could do one last good thing. "Please, Kurt—can't you please just tell him it was a fire, or something? That he got caught in it, and—"

Weller scoffed, his hand dropping to his side as he glared at her. "An accident? A _fire_? No, Jane. I'm not going to tell this man that his son died in an _accidental fire_."

"Kurt—"

"I know you two liked bending and breaking the rules as you saw fit, but please remember, _again_ , that I work for the FBI. I am the _head_ of the FBI. I am not at liberty to tell lies for you just to make your life easier. I told you; that isn't my job anymore."

"That isn't why I was asking! It's not for me!"

"It is absolutely why you were asking, Jane! It _is_ for you! You don't want this man blaming you for murdering his son. Understandable, but cowardly." He looked down at her, and the disappointment she saw in his face was worse than any hatred he could show her. "Honestly, Jane, I expected better. After all your talk of the importance of truth—"

"This isn't about the truth!" she cut in fiercely. "This is about not bringing that man any more pain! If he already thinks his son's dead—"

"I don't give a _shit_ if he already thinks his son's dead!" Weller shouted. "He, _like everyone_ , deserves the truth about what happened to his loved ones. So _no_ , Jane. I am not going to tell this man that his son died in an accident. I'm not going to tell him he died in a fire. I am going to tell him the truth: that his son was murdered, stabbed to death, and that we have the woman responsible in custody." He swiped his ID at the door and it slid open. He hesitated for only a moment, sparing one last look at her. There was nothing there in his face but contempt. "Who knows?" he muttered. "Maybe you'll get a visitor in jail after all. You can practice your 'truths' with him this time around, because I've heard enough."

* * *

 _ **A/N** : Thanks for reading! I would love to hear your thoughts. :)_


End file.
